1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to shopping carts, and more particularly shopping carts with flexible, elastically expandable sidewall components, to enable the carts to expand from and contract to its original volume when overloaded by goods placed in and removed from the carts.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
Shopping carts have been known for decades and are typically made of wire and tubular metal, plastic molded or extruded pieces or combinations thereof. They have baskets made of non-flexible, non-elastically expandable materials (plastic, metal, or combination) and basically present a rigid structure with a fixed volume. None have been provided with expandable volume capabilities based on flexible structures which expand and contract.
Laundry carts do not have nestability features as do shopping carts, but offer flexible side walls in the form of flexible canvas or plastic xe2x80x9cbagsxe2x80x9d.
Notwithstanding the prior art, the present invention is neither taught nor rendered obvious thereby.
Shopping carts have been designed to perform the transport of foodgoods and other products which may be hard or solid (non-amorphous) and need to both be protected from and protective of their contents. They must support, protect and at least partially contain goods in a manner much more stringent than a rolling pallet, a laundry cart or other transporter. They typically include nestability with a hinged backwall, open structure for visibility and air circulation, and require complex manueverability. Also necessary is ease for removing goods at a checkout counter taking into account the cart size, the use and the typical checkout counter.
The present invention is directed to shopping carts for manually transporting goods from one location to another, which uniquely provide the user with expandable capacity to receive more goods than a shopping cart of comparable size. The present invention shopping cart includes a bottom frame; a plurality of wheels connected to and located below the bottom frame; a vertical support connected to the bottom frame and extending upwardly therefrom to support a basket. The basket is located above the vertical support and connected thereto. The basket has a rigid bottom, an open top, a back, a front and two side walls. Each of the side walls include at least one top member connected to the front and the back, and further includes a flexible, elastically expandable member connected to the top member and connected elsewhere to the basket. In some embodiments, the basket front has a flexible, elastically expandable member.
The flexible, elastically expandable member of each side wall is connected to the front, the back, and the bottom of the basket and to its top member. The top member of the sidewalls may be flexible itself, but is preferably rigid.
In some embodiments, the side walls further includes a rigid wall portion connected to the basket and to the flexible, elastically expandable member, e.g. half of the wall is standard rigid construction, and half is flexible, although completely flexible side walls are preferred. The flexible, elastically expandable member of the side walls, and of the front, where applicable, is a material of elastomeric material, rubber, flexible polymer or mixture, and may be sheet, strip, mesh or otherwise. The elastically expandability feature is one which must be recoverable repeatedly, i.e. repeated expanding and contracting.